Two months to go

With two months to the birth--I mean pub--date of my first novel, If You Follow Me, I am feeling not unlike a woman in her last trimester, eager for this bulky thing to be out in the world already, but also slightly protective and uncertain what this imminent release will mean or feel like. I also have a young (2.4 year old) child, and am currently recovering from two holiday weeks without preschool, a pleasurable time, but also one in which I could feel my mind growing soft, the brain folds relaxing. An ambitious day for us was going to the museum of natural history to watch the penguins get fed. Anyhow, I have decided to start this space to post updates about upcoming readings and events, but also the occasional book review, link to something I think might be of interest, and whatever else strikes my fancy on a given day. I'm feeling guardedly optimistic about my ability to keep up a blog. Let's just say that the last one I started had a first entry that came in at three single spaced pages, a second entry that was a single page long, and that was it for the next two years until I finally deleted it, embarrassed by this public evidence of my inability to keep a blog going. (I also have a box packed with journals that are half-written, discarded after I got sick of their covers, or of the sight of my own handwriting). But here's to 2010, a new decade, a new book, a new chance to get past two blog entries...